in Isfahan
Day 8: Friday 26 May 2000
Our guide, for this one day only, is Abbas, a 32-year-old Isfahani who we promptly and perhaps a little unfairly christen "Mr Bean".
Imodium is called for this morning, which works its wonders immediately. When I disappear to the gents at the church, Abbas asks if all is OK. "Upset stomach" says Cat. "Ah, diarrhoea" says Abbas, "can you say that in polite society?" "No, but you can with us".
As we arrive at the Armenian cathedral in the Jolta district, south of the river, Abbas goes into "guide mode", directing us to stand in a particular spot while he goes into his spiel. I tell him smartly that we prefer to wander around by ourselves and I'll ask him for information when we wish. This rather stuns him, but he soon settles into a cheerful chat with Mehdi while we look round.
The interior of the cathedral, dark and full of pictures of hell, crystallises what is for me a key difference between Christianity (especially Catholicism) and Islam: the former emphasises the bad things you will suffer if you do wrong, while the latter, the loveliness of Heaven if you do and are good. This makes Islam, for me, a more positive and light-filled religion. This church hit a jarring note and I am glad to be away.
The Masjed-e Jameh is wonderful. Old (it was begun in about 12 or 13 something), it is both very complex (with 476 separate domes) and very plain. We wander round the delicate brick arcades marvelling at the fact that no two doors are the same and at the peacefulness, space and light. This mosque is largely un-tiled and retains a certain austerity lacking in the Safavid buildings elsewhere in Isfahan. The Timurid Winter Chamber is a winner, resembling as it does the interior of a Mongol tent or, rather, series of tents. Originally, the only light was that which filtered through the alabaster skylights, a relief after the glare and heat outside.
We then visit a Zurkhaneh and watch the Pahlavani going through their various warm ups, and twirling and club exercises, all to the furious drum accompaniment and chanting of the old boy presiding. The men - 29 of them, both young and old - perform in an octagonal marble pit, and the martial traditions go back some hundreds of years. It has a nationalistic tone to it apparently, and is also rather more popular with the poor people of Iran. One wonders how welcome a bunch of foreigners would be watching a sparring session at an East End gym, though that gives something of the feel of this place.
Cat takes a fancy to the Champion Twirler and also to the "Captain of the Immortals".
There is also a Japanese couple in there watching intently.
The Pol-e Khaju, the bridge that everyone photographs and which I had really wanted to see (the "symbol of Isfahan"), was really rather disappointing. People in pedallos and a canoeist slaloming below the sluice gates, together with the modern building nearby, did away with the "ancient mystery" that I had been expecting. We have tea under the bridge and then adjourn to the hotel for lunch and a short siesta.
In the afternoon, we visit the Ali Qapu palace, and the two mosques in the Royal Square. I cannot really add much to the standard guidebook descriptions except to mention
- the pool on the palace terrace that originally had a fountain worked by oxen
- the Afghan bullet holes in the door of the big mosque
- the reappearance of the Leica Fairy
- the peacock-tail lighting effect in the dome of the Sheik Lotfallah mosque, and
- the subterranean winter chamber modelled on that in the Masjed-e Jameh.
We stroll round the Chehel Sotun palace and gardens, and have tea in the attached chaykhane, where a Malay tour group are sitting. Towards sunset, we go to the oldest bridge, the Pol-e Shorestan. A Safavid construction (i.e. 17th century), it is founded on a much earlier Sassanid bridge and, indeed, the base of the arch of pontoons go right back to that time. A small fortified gate/toll-house stands on one side. The atmosphere is pleasanter that at the Pol-e Khaju, notwithstanding the funfair on the other bank and the fact that it runs over a backwater of the river which, dammed, now takes an alternative course.
We give Abbas a $10 send off and, after sprucing up a little, go round to the Sharzard restaurant with Mehdi. The Japanese couple who were inscrutably taking pictures in the Zurkhaneh are there, and they bow at my "Konbanwa". Cat plumps for some sort of racing steak and chips (in the event, cold sauté potatoes). I try some kind of lamb with green rice and split a pitcher of dugh with Mehdi. This drink, made from yoghurt, mineral water, mint and other herbs is odd, but refreshing. Cat will not be persuaded!